And a little extra…
.now.
I CAN’T READ MUSIC!
THIS SATURDAY AT 7PM AT THE DUPLEX!
A little spoiler to get you all revved up! Ladies and Gentleman, my ladies who couldn’t read a single note of music:
I have my Mary Jane taps(a few sizes bigger than the last pair I wore!) and a classic 50s style swing dress, being sassed up my first crinoline skirt, ready to spin! I got bows to put in my hair, ditties to tap and sway to, ballads to croon, hoots to holler, and stories to share plus the best director and music director making the Duplex feel like my home for an hour. Here is my bio featured on my director/producer John D. Forslund’s website:
A New Jersey native and an old musical comedy soul since childhood, a young Tara Tagliaferro began her solo cabaret career touring her grandparents’ basements and living rooms, selling out every couch and recliner as she showcased hits from musicals such as Grease, Joseph...Dreamcoat, and West Side Story, plus a spectacular one-woman version of the opening number in A Chorus Line (home videos available). Tara grew up consistently entertaining her family and stuffed animals, singing and tapping alongside Shirley Temple tapes, MGM musicals replayed on TV, and crackly old Broadway records as well as driving with her folks to NY to see her favorite shows live. She found nothing to be more magical. When she began performing in school plays and community theatre, she became instantly addicted to the audience laughter and constantly craved that joyful escape she found theatre to bring to herself and loved ones. Now many summer theatre camps and stocks (even one spent as a singing waitress!) and a BFA in musical theatre later, Tara could not be happier to still be true to the dreams and big imagination she had as a little girl. Landing in Philadelphia right after her graduation to fulfill a season long acting apprenticeship with America’s oldest regional theatre the Walnut Street Theatre, Tara has been blessed to perform in their Main Stage and Studio seasons, Kids Series, and with their Touring Outreach Company as well as with other regional companies in Philly, which she now calls home. She has also began work as a teaching artist through the Walnut’s Education Department, choreographing her first school show for the Walnut Adopt-a-School this spring. Please visit www.taratag.com to see what’s on the horizon next as she bounces between Philly and New York adventures. Tara could not be more thrilled to go out on a whim this New Year and share her story in her NYC one-woman cabaret debut with JD Productions! Always thanks to her beyond amazing family, beyond amazing friends, and beyond amazing boyfriend in which everything would be nothing without. For love!
Click HERE for more information! Get in touch with me if you’d like to make a reservation or click that lovely link. I want you there! I am so excited to be bringing together my friends, family, and mentors from college, summer stock, Philly, my hometown, and the Big Apple all under one roof. It’s insane to me. There will be no happier girl in the world on March 24th!
11TH HOUR THEATRE COMPANY ROCK MASTERCLASS
And now for something entirely different…
On Monday March 26th, I’ll be performing at the Twisted Tail located in Philly’s Queen Village in what I’m calling PHILLY ROCKS JR. brought to you by the 11th Hour Theatre Company. Before the concert, which starts at 8:30, I’ll be doing a master class with the company artistic director Mike O’Brien and resident rock beltress Alex Keiper on owning our rock songs of choice to be sung with…drum roll please…a LIVE BAND! Since I have a pop/rock spring coming my way (scroll down to see!), I am stoked to be giving myself this challenge. Can’t wait to put on my new heel boots and dive into unchartered Tara Tag rock ‘n roll territory. Who knows what will come out?! May be there is an inner punk queen in there somewhere. HEAD BANG!
CLICK ME TO GO TO 11TH HOUR’S FACEBOOK PAGE FOR INFO!
TARA TAG AS A BROADWAY SEASON GREETER FOR THE KIMMEL CENTER
On April 1st, I think you should go see West Side Story at the Academy of Music because someone may just be dressed up like a stewardess from CATCH ME IF YOU CAN promoting the Kimmel Center’s upcoming season….and Panam haha. I’m so excited for this! And you should just go see it to catch my good friend Chris Rice as Baby John!
CLICK ME TO GET INFO ON THE WEST SIDE STORY TOUR IN PHILLY!
.upcoming.
RENT AT BRISTOL RIVERSIDE
My first ever POP/ROCK musical! I am super excited to be making my BRT debut, especially with a musical I use to blast behind closed bedroom doors in my after school hours growing up. RENT was the first vocal selection book I purchased at 12, singing “Seasons of Love” in my first ever musical theatre class all on my lonesome. This was one of the first musicals I gravitated towards as an awkward young teen and I find it so fascinating that almost every one of my musical theatre peers can sing every lyric and note of this score with me. The music was addicting! It was probably my first contemporary musical obsession, seeing it on Broadway twice by the age of 14 (once with Joey Fatone from N*SYNC), and reading up on Jonathon Larson and RENT’s creation and journey. It is such a revolutionary musical that I feel blessed to be a part of. I’ve always wanted to play “Mark’s Mom” and dance on top of tables! Big thanks to Sheri Saunders, the rock audition guru, for giving me the audition material I used! She’s a must.
RENT runs May 8th-June 3rd! CLICK THIS LINK TO GO TO THE BRT WEBSITE FOR TICKET INFO!
THE MARVELOUS WONDERETTES with the 11th Hour Theatre Company
A heavenly slice of doo-wop pie! I am happy to announce that I will be assisting Barrymore Nominated choreographer and hip-hop master Samuel Reyes (my choreographer for Walnut Street’s A CHRISTMAS CAROL the past 2 years) in creating the choreography for this adorable musical review. Every rehearsal is going to feel like a sock hop. I am so thrilled to be working with 11th Hour Theatre Company for the first time, one of my favorites in town, and to be expanding myself as a choreographer. I’m really enjoying working on Aladdin Jr. and seeing what my imagination can come up with- its completely rewarding to see it all come to life!
I am also ECSTATIC to announce that I will be swinging “Betty Jean” and “Suzy” during the process, and I’m getting to go on in the final weekend for “Suzy!” R-E-S-P-E-C-T!!!!! I will have exact dates posted as soon as I know! I could not foresee a better way to kick off my summer.
THE MARVELOUS WONDERETTES runs in the Skybox at the Adrienne Theatre June 1st-25th ! CLICK THIS LINK TO GO TO THE 11TH HOUR WEBSITE FOR TICKET INFO!
BOYFRIEND MAKES PHILADELPHIA DEBUT
This isn’t really my news to post, but damn it, I’m proud and jumping for joy to be having my boyfriend live with me while he does SPRING AWAKENING at the Media Theatre this spring. Its going to wonderful and is exactly what we need as it sometimes gets hard getting to and from Astoria and Philly. I also just have such a love for this show- I can’t wait to see him in it! He gets to jump on tables too!
CLICK THIS LINK TO GET TICKETS TO SEE PATRICK ROBERTS IN SPRING AWAKENING
A SUMMER IN THE CITY
I am really looking forward to be spending my first ever summer in a city this year, choreographing CAMP WALNUT’s FAME JR. at the Walnut Street Theatre, and hopefully taking classes up the wazoo between Philadelphia and New York. Oh yeah, and working! I really love it at the National Constitution Center, especially when it’s sunny out because the whole building shines! I have a lot of personal projects I want to get off and running and may be will plan another cabaret to do! You know me- I can’t stand still for too long. I am looking forward to trips to my hometown, the shore, and may be planning some vacations with the boyfriend and best friends. Disney Land and Prince Edward Island have come to bat. Groupon can you do something about that? I also want to head out to the theatres my friends will be at the summer and applaud their performances! There’s nothing I love better.
.what’s been going on.
MY WALNUT STREET THEATRE MAIN STAGE DEBUT!
Tara Tag’s Understudy Tale
Exhausted on Sunday Night after my one-night only MOUSETRAP!
I don’t think there is anything as nerve wrecking and at the same time adrenaline pumping as understudying. It is an actor’s limbo, just looming in the abyss waiting for this no-guarantee ring to call you on. And even if you do get the news that it is going to happen, you don’t usually go right to jumping HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL style into the air. It usually feels more like panic and instead of butterflies delightfully entering your tummy in this excited anticipation, it’s more like horrifying bats flapping around. But you are alive in every sense. It’s like someone just pressed the fast forward button on your life and you trust the theatre magic to catch you up to speed.
The beginning…(Disclaimer this is long, but I promise entertaining!)
The West End Theatre!
I had hopped onboard THE MOUSETRAP, undoubtedly Agatha Christie’s most popular murder mystery written in 1952 being the longest running play EVER on the West End, a few weeks after it opened as an immediate replacement for the Mollie u/s. Other than having been the reader at auditions for a few of the roles way back in June the previous year, I knew then only what Wikipedia had to offer on the show and had already forgotten most of that. Hahaha-Great. So I threw myself into the whole thing pretty blind due to my jam-packed schedule, but knew I could not pass this opportunity up and would make myself find the time. Thank God I could pull a British accent out of my bag of tricks from doing ARCADIA in college and a bigger thank God that the stage manager, the incredible tour de force Debbi Marcucci, could not be any better in introducing a wide-eyed understudy to the character she is going to play in the yummiest way. She made me hungry to act and it instantly felt good to be involved with a play again. I think the most hilarious thing early on is when I was doing the first read through of the script with Debi the day after I had got it. I asked her before we began if “Mollie” was a huge role. I think Debi let our a hearty chuckle and said, “Girl friend, it’s the lead.” Oh- good to know.
I had about a week and a day to get off book as best as I could and three rehearsals with the understudy cast. I was doing everything possible in that little free time I had to make the lines stick, but boy oh boy, was I getting a run for my money. Especially in Act 2, Mollie pretty much never leaves stage nor shuts up. I called the hardest part of Mollie’s track the Trifecta, engaging in these three back to back to back scenes as if I were acting an Olympic marathon. Those scenes were also pivotal in revealing a lot of the show’s key clues with emotions and suspicions brewing high. No biggie, no biggie.
So the final understudy run through happened and I felt good about Act 1, but hobbled through Act 2 as the lines ricocheted around in my brain. It was a little rough with a lot of line calling, but I had done what I could. I did end up finding fun in it though, really enjoying the play’s twist and turns and the role. But never in million years did I think I was going to go on. So I thought that was that…
About two weeks later, I got notice that the actress I was understudying, who just so happens to be my voice teacher, big sister, and favorite Philly director Miss Jennie Eisenhower, was feeling a little under the weather. Thank God I got that warning. I confess THE MOUSETRAP was not really in my every day thoughts, working on the two school shows and Purim Play, taking class, working, and auditioning, so having that advanced little heads up allowed me to get it back into my brain. I did doubt if it ever was really there, but had no choice. I took the warning very seriously that Friday night and treated it as if I was going on for the Saturday matinee. When 1:30 came around Saturday afternoon and I had no text/call, I passed out on my couch, having been buried in the script all morning. I figured no news was good news to Jennie’s health recovering and I went about my day. I headed out to the Mazeppa Fundraiser that night, the company I worked for last summer, to volunteer my help in setting up and to cheer on the cabaret performance. Just as the cabaret was ready to kick off and about three wine glasses in, I got a three part text from the stage manager that I was more than likely going to be doing one or both of the Sunday shows.
Instant heat took over my body. I think the wine helped. I scurried on out of Mazeppa, explaining to them the situation, and fled home, stopping for coffee and water on the way. I enlisted the help of two best friends Leslie Nevon Holden and Matt Mastronardi to come on over and help me run THE MOUSETRAP in my living room. I was so lucky that both of them rushed to my aid.
Leslie and Matty got me through the whole show that night, stopping to fix the trouble lines and making me laugh as they took on all the accents and got into the murder mystery themselves. I had no official notice by the end of the night, only that I was on call. I woke up early the next morning and did a quiet line through with a delicious breakfast in my neighborhood coffee shop and had my roommate Rachel run my Mt. Everest Act 2 moments in her room. I canceled my day and made it all about THE MOUSETRAP. I had found out that morning I was to be at the Walnut by noon to try on costumes and to start doing a mini- put in just in case with only the stage manager. Nothing official yet, but we were playing it safe.
Fortunately Jennie was able to do that matinee- she’s a true blue professional- so I got to watch the show again. I had only gotten through Act 1 with Debi and only did lines for Act 2 with the ASMS in the green room at half hour, so that was really helpful. After the matinee, I waited like a jittery Jill in the green room for my fate. Was I doing the night show? Was this really going to happen? My knees couldn’t stop knocking. Then Debi came out of Jennie’s dressing room and gave me the thumbs up. “You’re going on.”
And now, everything else is a blur. I know I somehow texted Patrick, Matty, Leslie, and Rachel and called my parents, who were both sick and couldn’t make it, before the dinner break put in. The Walnut ordered pizza and we were off- we had 1 hour and half to get me through everything. The biggest thank you to the cast for being beyond supportive and amazing, all such accomplished actors-Philadelphia stars!-some having Broadway credits, MFAs, Barrymores- things that if I thought about, I was like- what am I doing on stage with these people!!?? They all had my back and made me feel very safe, some of them I was even just meeting for the first time! I seriously couldn’t ask to have a better cast to enter into.
We got through the show and by that time, it was half hour. My hands were so jittery that Jennie’s dresser Deb and the wig designer Meg took complete care of me, getting my hair in pin curls, wig on, and even lipstick as I did everything else on my face and drank gulps of water. No pizza for me and so much love to those ladies for settling my nerves. Then before I knew it, I was at places. Mollie is the first character to enter with all this suspicious business, so I stood in the wings feeling like Judy Garland in THE WIZARD OF OZ after getting her Emerald City hair make over with that wig, clutching my hand bag and not really believing this was happening. Patrick was on his way from NY to be in the audience with a nice handful of my friends who had found out last minute through Jennie’s facebook post- CRAZY TOWN- or that I’M GOING ON! Text I had sent out. Then all of a sudden the announcement had started. The stage right ASM was throwing snow on me since Mollie is coming in from a huge snowstorm, and my dresser was fixing this pink Edie Beale like wrap over my head. I was trying to think of my first line and was just blanking. Then I looked up at the cue light and saw it go out. That’s when something just took over. THEATRE MAGIC. Off I went.
I can’t really remember anything else. I did feel very invested and was even starting to have fun with the scenes I had been confident about. It was like it wasn’t me if that makes any sense; I was so focused that it was almost out of body like I was playing chess with myself. I did almost get knocked out with the curtain at the end of the show-yikes!, but I had made it through pretty smoothly. The cast even gave me my own bow at the end, which I’ll never forget- so surreal. It hadn’t even hit me that I had played a lead on the Walnut main stage just yet. I was just trying so hard not to let anyone down or mess up the story the whole time. When it was over as I was exiting Jennie’s star dressing room, I had to pinch myself.
I had a cheese steak celebration that night with Patrick- who ran from the train station in time to catch the end of Act 1 to the end- and Leslie, Matty, and Nate who had dropped what they were doing to see me go on. Matty even ran to an audition on intermission- an audition in which he eventually booked! It was a theatre magic day. Thank you February 27th!
The Walnut Facebook page wrote up a little post about me that Monday and I went back to normal life the next week. It all had happened so fast and I am so grateful that I got this opportunity and was matched with so much faith and guidance. I could thank that cast and crew forever and my amazing friends for coming together like my family that weekend. Mollie is the biggest role I have ever played haha- I love the Walnut for giving me the chance to continue my growth as a young actress. WOW! I’ll never forget this experience as long as I live.
After curtain call with Judy Garland Oz Curls!
THE BUSY BEE…
The Cabaret Duo MATTY AND ME!
The week before the understudy tale I was in Scranton, performing with Matty the cabaret for my grand parents assistant living home we had thrown together. It was a beautiful weekend, stuffing our face with the best pizza in the world- OLD FORGE pizza is too die for good- and singing our hearts out in the packed lobby before the Sunday Happy Hour and my Pop-Pop and Mom’s joined birthday dinner. So many of my family members I hadn’t seen in forever came out and had the nicest things to say. Matty and I felt like Mickey and Judy and stayed after our finale to continue playing songs on the baby grand at the entertainment director’s request. So many people came over to us to shake our hands and thank us, and assumed we were from Broadway- hilarious! We had this little old man in a wheelchair, Doctor Nick, come over to us and share all his favorite Broadway memories. He had missed our performance because he accidently fell asleep in his room, so Matty and I gladly did our duet numbers again for him and melted at his stunning stories he told about the Broadway Golden Age. He invited us back to his room and gave us some of his old Irving Berlin concerts taped off of TV. He was just too darling, especially when he talked about his love for Julie Andrews! Matty and I just couldn’t get over it!
Now through my mom’s promotion- get it Agent Momma Tag, Matty and I may be doing some more performances at other senior citizen homes and centers down the line. It is definitely a nice outlet that we are excited to continue exploring!
I have also been taking a lot of classes between the Walnut Street Theatre and New York City. I’ve been working with the Walnut Street Theatre Casting Director Kate Galvin on musical theatre auditions and actress/choreographer Ellie Mooney at tackling dance calls weekly, getting the treat to even work with cast members from SISTER ACT on Broadway and the WHITE CHRISTMAS tour. Auditioning is never easy, so I just feel it is important to always be working on it and this definitely in the most fun way possible! I also took another class with Stage Door Connections, this time learning the HOW TO SUCCEED…Revival Dance call with the Associate Choreographer Chris Bailey (my back is still sore), and with the new Growing Studio in New York meeting and working with Casting Director Benton Whitely from Duncan Stewart Casting. I always learn something new that I can start applying to my audition confidence!
Aladdin Jr. is also well on its way (I’m excited to get some double-dutch happening in “Friend Like Me”) as well as Annie Jr., both mentioned in my previous blog. The Purim Play I assisted WST teaching artist and actress Heidi Hayes on out in Wynnewood, PA at the Main Line Temple was a major success! Our cast of MY FAIR ESTER (parody of MY FAIR LADY) all rose to the occasion, hamming up their already hilarious characters and committing like pros. They were all just dolls to laugh the Wednesday night rehearsals away with, reminding me always of why I love theatre. I look forward to working with them again in the future!
This is an exciting spring!
All I need is for my allergies to hold their horses, and my smile will never fade. I can’t wait to embrace this city with my boyfriend in our days off together, throw parties with my amazing roommates, whip out my dresses, and enjoy the warmer weather! Thank you for reading my blog- I love sharing all this and loving reading the blogs of all my friends.
I’ll leave you with my Walnut Street Theatre Adopt a School Performance of “Shy” from ONCE UPON A MATTRESS! Happy Spring and I hope to share it in some way with you!
